'Pfizer to shed half Kent workforce'
Pfizer, the US Pharmaceutical company, is planning to cut around half of its Kent workforce - around 500 jobs according to press reports.
Whilst there has been no official announcement as of yet, the newspaper reports that this action is part of the latest retrenchment from the facility behind the discovery of Viagra.
The facility at Discovery Park, Sandwich, has been open for almost 70 years and contains development labs, pilot manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients and drug manufacturing.
These reports suggest that large parts of the research, manufacturing, and development that regularly takes place at the site will come to a halt. With this being said, The Times has suggested that this work will be consolidated at two other existing sites in Connecticut in the US and Chennai in India.
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Over the years Pfizer has cut back its operations in Sandwich, which once employed 2,400 people. In 2011 it announced large job cuts and the following year it sold the freehold to the site to a private consortium.
Cuts over the years have incentivized other Life Science operations to occupy the spaces that Pfizer no longer had use for at the site.
Pfizer has achieved recent years and topped $100 billion last year, driven by the success of Comirnaty, the Covid-19 vaccine.
Pfizer said: “We are proud of our heritage of breakthrough science in the UK and we will retain a scientific presence in the UK including at our Discovery Park location in Sandwich.”
''Other roles at the site include analytical and testing laboratories and packaging and labelling. Pfizer said that “other functions at our Sandwich site will continue with a different size”.
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